Masterbuilt AutoIgnite 545 Smart Grill Review: Charcoal on Easy Mode?

[@Masterbuilt]

Talk about grill goals! Your Masterbuilt setup looks amazing. Thanks for sharing the love! 🔥

[@anoraker]

Thank you! I'd really love to check out the Gravity XT! That thing looks like fire! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@TimHillRocks]

Great vid. I picked up one of these a few weeks ago. You are spot on with how frustrating the assembly of this is. One additional issue I ran into that you didn't mention is that they give you the exact number of screws you need for assembly. At one point while the unit was upside down I had dropped 3 screws that I couldn't recover. Luckily when I flipped it back right side up I managed to get them all out, but for a while I as worried I'd have to pause my assembly to get more screws. Including a few extra screws for each type would have been nice. I also agree with your observations on starting it up. I've had to use my butane torch about half to time to help get it going. Would be nice if the auto ignite feature was a bit more consistent as I like to go prep my food while it's starting up, but it's more of a minor annoyance that a big complaint. Having said all that, I absolutely love this thing. It's large enough to do the things I do regularly on my grills (can easily fit 2 racks of ribs or a couple spatchcocked chickens), it's got most of the flavor of my kettle grill with the ease of a gas grill. I've also run it using mostly wood as a fuel after getting a small charcoal bed going, which really can pump out the smoke, albeit it does take a lot more management as you can only put a few chucks in at a time. I wish it had a little more space, but at $500 it's fantastic and a $1500 XT is way out of my budget at the moment.

[@anoraker]

You're absolutely right about the screws, and I totally forgot to mention that. I lost one. Forever. But thankfully it wasn't a "necessary for support" screw, so I was able to make do without. Definitely need extras included. All the same, I too love this grill. And it gets the coals up to temperature so much faster than the traditional route.

[@ChrisG9978]

Agree that assembly was a bit of a pain...I managed to get mine together within a couple of hours but the bottom had a kink in it so I had to use the rubber mallet in a few cases to persuade some parts to fit the way they were intended. You can cut down on the ash on the bottom by using a tall metal bucket below the ash pan, or letting your ash just go into the metal bucket. Haven't had issues using the auto ignite with the Masterbuilt fire starters...I don't think any parts or design was changed over the past few months but who knows.

[@anoraker]

Does the fan blow sooner now? I've been testing another grill sent to me, so I haven't used this one in a hot minute. From what I could tell the problem was too fold: The lighter didn't ignite the fire starters a lot of times. The fan waited to long to blow air to get a lit starter going. I bypass some of this by just using a blow torch.

[@ChrisG9978]

@@anoraker Typically the fan doesn't get going for a few minutes...I've found that hitting the ignite button before loading anything into the hopper or loading the starter works the most reliably. Wait until the heating element is glowing then put your starter in there and it should torch up within a minute or less. After your starter is going, dump your coals into the hopper and leave the hopper open for a bit. Smoke will start to pour out and at that point I usually shut the hopper and the grill lid (make sure the small slider door is shut once your starter has ignited). The fan typically kicks on within a couple of minutes and your temp should rise pretty quickly. The starter should ignite well before the fan kicks on...could be your starters are bad or were exposed to moisture...either that or your heating element isn't making contact with the starter (maybe your heating element is bent upward a bit?).

[@steeltx]

Appreciate The video!

[@gnudad]

I'm curious about ash on the food like a pellet smoker does. I've not heard anyone address this. Thanks. Nice vid.

[@anoraker]

It's possible, yes, if you aren't careful but avoidable. On a couple of occasions I've gone to reload the hopper with more charcoal, and forgot to pause the fan first... which led to the fan blowing ash out of the hopper and onto my food. But as long as I remembered to pause, I didn't have any issues. So it was just a new habit to form.

[@gnudad]

Thanks!

[@arthurwood7525]

Great review! How efficient is it if you're an everyday griller???

[@anoraker]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by efficient. But I've taken to using this every day. It's just about as fast to get going as propane, which I really like. But it also cooks faster than propane just because it does a much better job of maintaining a consistent temperature (even when you open up to flip), and thanks to the probes. That means despite having another charcoal and propane combo grill... I haven't fired that thing up at all since I started using this.

[@arthurwood7525]

@@anoraker Great answer, thx.

[@Pafcchris]

I’ve just brought this and I keep getting flame outs and the fan doesn’t kick in and thus I lose temperature. Have you had this and what am I doing wrong? Great video by the way.

[@anoraker]

Yes I have. I address how to avoid this in the video. Try the firestarters I recommend and a butane torch to light them when the light stops blinking. Ever since I started doing this I’ve had a successful light every time. Make sure to keep the hopper and grill cover OPEN until the fan kicks on fully. The instructions are wrong about when to close.

[@anoraker]

Or do you mean after you initially get up to temperature?

[@Pafcchris]

@@anorakeryes, I can get it to temperature however after around 2hrs the temperature drops and the fan doesn’t kick in although there’s coal still burning in the hopper. I just smoked a chuck roast and had to relight 3 times during a 3 1/2 cook.

[@kleiwerper]

These are 500 euro new. I can buy a master built 560 for 350 euro used, it's only been used 5 times so it's like new. Any advice?

[@anoraker]

That's a great price if the grill is any good. It comes down to the following in my book: If you'd rather have a very quick lighting process and the ability to sear, and don't mind spending more, get the autoignite. If you don't need searing and want more cooking space, get the 560.

[@midegola5623]

thanks for showing everything and not leaving anything out, but if this ( 13:28 ) is how the meat is gona look, ima have to pass.

[@anoraker]

So the problem here is that this grill essentially “smokes” meat, even at high temps. It doesn’t sear. And steak only looks good seared (tastes better too). So the next step here is to take it inside and sear. Or sear on the hot plate there if you have room. But as this isn’t a recipe video I didn’t show that as well as I could have or many should have. Steaks tasted amazing though.

[@David-jo4gt]

Thank you for the review. I won't be buying one. The cost, assembly, clean up, starting problems, hot ash on my wooden deck. Too many red flags at that price point.

[@anoraker]

I get it! I'm planning to put a mat under mine for the ash problem, but yeah it is concerning. Grills food really good though.